from the yeah,-that'll-change-everything dept

Still desperate to prove that they are in touch with the online community, the House Intelligence Committee has launched a new Twitter account apparently dedicated to talking about how totally awesome CISPA is. They haven't been at it for very long, but they've already blessed the hashtags #CISPA and #cyber (they really love that word, don't they?) with several disingenuous tweets full of misinformation and flat-out inaccuracies:

Firstly, how does a federal law that creates an internet security exemption to every other existing law represent keeping the "federal govt’s hands off the Internet"? The entire point of CISPA is to give every federal agency that already has its hands on the internet more information and power. Similarly, while the bill itself does not have any provisions relating to blocking website access, it creates clear provisions for companies to give data to Homeland Security—the people who already seize websites.

Strong privacy protections? CISPA includes virtually no privacy protections, beyond a call for annual recommendations from the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. Meanwhile, it eliminates existing privacy protections, because as soon as a company deems its data "cyber threat information", it can turn it over to the government without worrying about any other laws. As for how CISPA "strictly limits" what the government can do with the data, that depends on your definition of "strictly"—and, of course, whether you're honest about what the bill says, which the House Intelligence Committee is not:

Maybe they'll blame Twitter's character limit, but they left out a very important part there. Information can only be shared with the government if it is related to cybersecurity, but it can be used by the government for the purposes of cybersecurity or national security. That's a much, much broader field, and the cybersecurity heading is already pretty wide open, when you remember how it's defined in CISPA—as anything relating to protecting a network from:

‘(A) efforts to degrade, disrupt, or destroy such system or network; or

‘(B) theft or misappropriation of private or government information, intellectual property, or personally identifiable information.

Moreover, there are no limitations on how long the government can keep the data, or on how often they can come back and search it for whatever they want—as long as they can justify the search as either cybersecurity or national security. That's not what most people call "strict".

Resistance to CISPA is growing, and more flimsy misinformation isn't going to change anything just because the committee puts it on Twitter. We already wrote about how astonishing it is that Congress expected no resistance to the bill, and now it seems like they're finally waking up to the fact that they were wrong—but, as usual, they have no idea how to respond.

Reader Comments

Mini-rants of the new 21st century.

It is time to understand the new law. This law is trodding not only on the Constitution, but on the precedents set in judicial law.

The 4th Amendment guarantees against unreasonable searches and seizures. That's gone with this bill.

Katz v United States - 4th Amendment applies to technology

US v Warshak - People have an expectation of privacy in their emails and a warrant must be obtained based on probable cause. (I personally believe the standard should be higher such as reasonable doubt).

So in essence, this bill is about one thing: False Accountability. And this bill should recognize that false accountability in its name.

Now... Look at the 100 sponsors to this bill. Notice what they've done and what they've tried to do to the United States for the past 40 years. And elitist attitude. Check. Attacks on minorities? Check. A merging of state and government against the people? Check.

Welcome everyone to the 21st century of a fascist government. One that misleads and lies instead of telling the plain truth about a bill that is not needed. So from now on, I'm calling this bill exactly what it is. FACISPA.

It is not a bill to protect consumers. It's a bill to destroy the 4th Amendment. I love liberty too much to allow this to pass. Down with FACISPA!

Re: Mini-rants of the new 21st century.

YES !!! Down with this Corrupt Asshole Government !
Down with both of these Sold Out Piece of SH$T PARTIES !
I personally would love to see a huge many Millions of People March on the Corrupt Cesspool of a Government and get your Tar & Feathers Ready.
CISPA Will take Away your 4TH Ammendment Rights and it will also screw you on your 1ST Ammendment Rights as well.
It will also do a lot more than that as those two things are like the tip of the large Iceberg.
A Sick and disgusting thing to do to this Free Nation.Which is not free at all.It is nothing but an illusion.
As soon as I hear the call to rise up I am going to join Right in.
I Love My Country !!!
I Hate This Government more than anything I can think of.
These schmucks are completely selling out the Population and they do not give a flying F$$K about any of us.
Washington is playing a dangerous Game.Soon we will have Gulags.
I Do Not Want To Vote For Either Party ! We have to do something.

Re: Re:

As soon as all of the Congresscritters turn over all their emails and browser histories to the public, they can have my support for this crap bill.
They want to have that sort of access to my life, I expect the same in return.
Then we have no secrets from each other and we can all live happily ever after.

if there was nothing wrong with the Bill, the House Intelligence Committee wouldn't be wasting time and effort in trying to convince everyone else that there was nothing wrong with it. just like SOPA and soon, hopefully, ACTA, the people have expressed that they have had enough of governments continuously interfering with the Internet and what people can or cannot do, when the main purpose is to protect a dying entertainment industry, not to protect citizens from ANYTHING other than greedy old farts that want to control everything!

Idea...

TEst

The sneaky B clause above, gives EVERYTHING that sopa wanted to give to both government and private corporations to censor ANYthing :

".........(B) theft or misappropriation of private or government information, intellectual property, or personally identifiable information.............."

'theft or misappropriation of private information and intellectual property', basically evolves to what sopa wanted to do about catching those nasty 'pirates', and doing anything government or private corporations want to do with their information.

What's amazing is, how the people who are preparing this bill, have been able to squeeze half of the essence of SOPA into CISPA with just one sentence, and two phrases .....

Ugh I can't possibly explain the way I feel about this scum with twitters crappy limit. Gd I hate twitter lol...

Alright to the point South Park style.
CISPA is bad mkay.

No one likes the idea of a legal virtual peeping tom for Christ sakes! "With 7 billion eyes"

If they end up with their way systems will be installed to make spying easy as one click. Now about that!!!
How long would it be till some 12 year old hacker outsmarts them and steals massive amounts of data? Data that could be pointless or potentially cataclysmic.

Also what about the small number of people running it? They have just been given a backdoor to the world!
Their moronic ways are going to fuck us all over in the end if we don't stop it now.

No one person deserves the key to everything!! That kind of power can corrupt even the most noble of people.
As we are in a society ruled by technology it is of the utmost importance to make sure it stays divided among everyone and protect it at all cost. No single one of us deserves the whole thing and none of us EVER WILL EVER!

Mark my words they're going to make privacy "the best defense we have when it comes to protecting data" obsolete!